Mount Aspiring National Park, about 50 km northwest of Wanaka, is a paradise for hikers. There are numerous excellent trails within and just outside the park boundaries. One of these is the main route for climbers to ascend Mount Aspiring, a 3,033 m peak that gave its name to the park. Instead of exploring Mount Cook, as we had first planned to do, we followed Chris and Erica's suggestion to go hike in Mount Aspiring National Park where we would have better opportunities for pictures and would not spend 5 to 6 hours in the car driving. They suggested the Rob Roy Glacier Track, one of the country's most highly rated trail. So, we drove the 50 km road to the trail head, but by the time we got there, it was too late to begin the hike. The problem was that the scenery was so beautiful along the road that it took us much longer to do the 50km stretch than we had anticipated. Anyway, this and the following pics were selected from a set of more than 50 shots, nearly all presentable.

Following the recent devastating earthquake in Christchurch, I have been looking over past images I have taken in New Zealand. This one was shot on a helicopter flight over the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers in the Southern Alps, not terribly far from Christchurch (about 160 km or 100 miles as the crow flies). You can see the curve of the earth in this image It shows the view looking northwards onto the Tasman Glacier, and Mt Cook/ Aoraki is pretty much right under where the helicopter was when this shot was taken. I understand that it is Malte Brun across the other side of the glacier, and Mt. Elie de Beaumont is the peak at the end of it. Many thanks to Glenn Banks, from Palmerston, NZ for the feature names. Technical details same as the last image, but no dodging. This made it to #119 in Flickr Explore on 8 March 2011